


The Peasant Religion

by noblesavage



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Dystopian Future, Imperial Guard, Military Science Fiction, Orks, Science Fiction, Tallarn, Warhammer 40k - Freeform, inquisitor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23030953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblesavage/pseuds/noblesavage
Summary: The Tallarn 89th Recon hosts an unwelcome guest on the eve of battle.
Kudos: 5





	The Peasant Religion

**The Peasant Religion**

The last of the Valkyrie lifters disappeared over the horizon. The aircraft were carrying the recon elements north, where they were tasked with locating the xenos threat and drawing elements of his force away from the main body. Ibn Al’Rahem was supposed to be leading them. But instead…

Al’Rahem sighed and turned his face to the sun. It was high summer on Shindelgeist secundus, and northern hemisphere broiled for days between regular, drenching cloud bursts.

The heat was different than what he remembered on Tallarn—the humidity on secundus could be oppressive--but it was welcome nonetheless. He tried to let the sun bake the irritation and disappointment out through his pores.

The small honor guard Al’Rahem had quickly scraped together stood at attention and quietly bore the heat. He had barely begun to sweat when the peculiar-looking Aquila touched down in front of them. The normally compact lander’s fuselage had been lengthened, and fitted with what looked like a pre-fab cargo or hab module. It had also clearly been up-engined. The lander was lavishly adorned with the Emperor’s Eagle of Unity, but it bore no unit markings or personal heraldry. Certainly none of the expected Inquisitorial rosettes were visible.

The Aquila’s passenger ramp lowered with a faint hydraulic sighing, and two stormtroopers pounded shoulder-to-shoulder down the ramp, turning smartly to the left and right to take up positions at the ramp’s foot. Next, something that looked like an electroplated human skull floated down from the lander, hovering above the ground at approximately head-height. With a slight hum, it dropped to where it could see beneath the lander’s belly and spun 360 degrees. Then an augmetic device inhabiting one of the skull’s eye sockets projected a hair-thin ribbon of ruby light that played over Al’Rahem and his men. To their credit, his men, who came from superstitious nomadic stock, shifted uncomfortably but did nothing more. The flying skull, apparently some sort of security device, shut down the eye beam and backed off to hover at the shoulder of one of the motionless, silent stormtroopers. Finally, another set of footsteps descended the ramp.

 _And now we learn if the dates are sweet, or if we have just been poisoned_ , Al’Rahem thought. The Emperor’s servant—whose arrival required an officer’s welcome in most cultures and certainly by Imperial custom—set foot on Shindelgheist Secundus and looked around. An aging man, beginning to thicken about the middle but still hale, allowed himself a few seconds to take in the scenery and take a deep breath of air. He shrugged off a ballistic cloth-lined cape, revealing battered carapace armor. The man picked out Al’Rahem as the obvious ranking officer, and he strode forward. The armored man approached Al’Rahem and stopped exactly three steps away. This distance was symbolic in Tallarn culture. It was just inside the reach of an average man armed with a koumaya, indicating trust, yet leaving enough space to draw one’s own weapon and mount a defense, which indicated a healthy respect for the other’s ability with a blade.

The man raised his left hand and touched two fingertips to his forehead, then placed the open hand over his heart. Before the hand obscured it, Al’Rahem spied a subtle Inquisitorial rosette engraved into the man’s breast plate. “I come to you bearing His words, and in His name I ask for your hospitality and protection,” the man said in passable Aramiyic. Al’Rahem was surprised into a genuine smile. He returned the traditional greeting: “Acting by His example, I open my home and offer you the protection of my people.” Al’Rahem switched to High Gothic. “You know our ways. You speak our language.” The man—the Inquisitor, Al’Rahem reminded himself—grinned broadly. There was a bright flash of white, rebonded teeth amidst the stubble of a week-old beard. “I would not claim fluency, emir. I hypno-learned a few greetings. Perhaps enough to order a drink. Or ask where I might find the refresher.”

_But you knew enough to address me as emir. You studied us enough to know that most Tallarn officers are hereditary nobles._

“I hear you go north to fight the greenskin. I have a… special interest in seeing Waagh Charadon destroyed, so I come bearing a gift.” The Inquisitor casually gestured toward the rear of the Aquila. A broad cargo ramp lowered and the deep rumble of a promethium engine chugged to life inside the ship. An open-topped Chimera variant backed down the ramp, turned smartly on one track, and then the servitor visible in the driver’s pit drove the light tank to a position one meter behind the Inquisitor’s heel. The vehicle was a Griffon weapons-carrier mounting a 200 mm, autoloading heavy mortar. The weapon could hurl up to six cogitator-aimed rounds a minute. Any nearby hit would make a terrible mess of an ork mob. However, the tank’s position at the Inquisitor’s heel was a clear message: the Inquisitor spoke of a gift, but he had not yet given that gift.

The Tallarn captain and the Inquisitor studied each other’s faces. “You wish to review my troops,” Al’Rahem said in a neutral voice. The Inquisitor snorted and waved his hand. “You have a reconnaissance mission to plan, and I can see you would be rather be about it.” Another wide grin. “I won’t waste your men’s time having them stand around like a Mordian cadet graduation. But I ask one thing of you, emir. I ask for the honor of fighting alongside one of your units.”

The request caught Al’Rahem flat-footed. Major Hassan, over Captain Al’Rahem’s objection, had offered the 89th Tallarn Recon’s services to the Inquisition. Both officers knew the havoc the Inquisition was wreaking on the Imperial Guard forces in the Shindelgeist system. Inquisitors and their henchmen stalked the ranks, discovering witchery seemingly at random. The 61st/320th Orenian, the Blackwatch Fusiliers, the Cadian 2nd Shock—Cadian Shock troops, of all units—had been censured and had undergone disastrous culls of their best officers and most capable troops. None of the personnel, ostensibly taken away for “tests of purity” ever returned to their units.

Major Hassan decided not to simply wait for the 89th’s turn under the Inquisition’s holy scrutinizers. Instead, he opened his force’s ranks and placed it at the Inquisition’s command. Would a traitorous Imperial Guard unit, rotten from the inside with heresy, welcome the Inquisition’s attention? Hassan could think of no other way to spare his troops. Al’Rahem had expected troop reviews, loyalty ordeals, and hypno-interrogation. This smiling, disheveled Inquisitor was a cipher. The Inquisitor, acting as if Al’Rahem’s confused silence was tacit agreement, walked up beside the Tallarn. He casually placed a hand on Al’Rahem’s pauldron, gently turning the officer to face the honor guard. The Inquisitor’s eyes roved the troops, then he seemed to choose a platoon at random.

“Those men, there. What can you tell me about them?” The Tallarn in question were standing at an approximation of attention. They were armed with an array of las weapons, silenced stub rifles, and even a few bowcasters. Their beards, clothing, and even the skin of hands and faces were the color of sand, and each had an ivory-pommeled koumaya stuck into his belt.

“They are Fellahin,” Al’Rahem answered. “Not marksman, as Tallarn go, but they leave no mark on the desert. Enemies do not hear their breath, or the drawing of their knives. When fighting the greenskin, I wait until the brutes have drunk themselves to oblivion, then I send in the Fellahin to disable their vehicles. At dawn, my raiders are among them, and the greenskins find they cannot flee or use any of their walking machines. But,” Al’Rahem said doubtfully, “I fear you might find the Fellahin… uncouth.”

The Inquisitor chuckled, producing a deep, ursine rumble. “I have yet to meet a greenskin that cared anything for drawing room manners, emir. Violent times cry out for ‘uncouth’ men.” He seemed to make a snap decision. “All is well, captain. I will fight with your … Fellahin, you called them? No need to make introductions,”--the Inquisitor was already striding away—“they and I will reach an understanding.”

Al’Rahem let out a breath he didn’t know that he’d been holding. Could he trust such good fortune? The Fellahin would fight alongside the Inquisitor, but they would never open up to him. The Inquisitor would learn nothing of the peasant religion--which could, to the ignorant, look like heresy—from the Fellahin. And if it became necessary, Throne forbid, that the Inquisitor looked to make trouble, the Fellahin were capable of handling the matter quietly. Great Al’lha, walking avatar of Him on Earth, let that not be necessary, Al’Rahem prayed.


End file.
